News agencies are reporting that a former Orange County resident orchestrated a $763 million tax conspiracy that may have defraud the IRS and U.S. taxpayers of more than $10 million.
According to the Associated Press, federal prosecutors in Seattle have charged Ronald L. Brekke, a 54-year-old former Newport Beach and Fountain Valley resident, with crimes surrounding allegations that he helped prepare income tax returns seeking bogus refunds.
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The alleged scheme was doomed because authorities discovered that two
Canadian citizens working with Brekke, a former Minnesota carpenter, had
filed fake U.S. tax returns and each grabbed more than $350,000 in
refunds.
Brekke's defense attorney said at a court hearing that, “He's made no effort to hide what he's doing.”
But he might be hoping to employ an insanity defense. Brekke has
reportedly argued that he can't be charged because the U.S. government
is “a corporation” and his federal indictment was improper because his
name was listed in all capital letters.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.